The Caucasus Climb with my boys
>> Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Coach, Big Daddy J, D-Rig, Qaçmaq and I spent a day and climbed to the top of a mountain in Qax! We beagn in Ləkit and climbed to Kötüklü (a little village about 7 kilometers north of Ləkit. That hour and half trek drenched us.
The mountains in the horizon was the goal for the morning, that night only about 30 minutes left.
I packed 3 liters of water but Turan, the robot shepherd, seems to think that only tea is necessary. Once you finish a hike, nothing while actually physically exerting yourself. So as I was zipping up backpack he decided to pour out half of it, punk. At one point Jason, Derek and Turan huddled under an umbrella while Josh smoked solely under the protection of his poncho. Classic.
Up in Kötüklü we stayed in an empty village house. The American boys yelled about politics outside while Turan and I translated Fizuli with one of the cousins. You can always count on Turan to be reading poetry and trying to teach me some meaningful lesson. You would think this is ridiculous enough but no. Derek fell off the balcony into some ginger type plant and had itchy marks all on his back. Great way to prepare for an uphill hike. Some would sleep but Derek is better than all the rest. Next morning we went to the top. This is us about an hour north of Kötüklü. A few more hours and a few walking sticks to find.
As was expected the boys were all far superior to me in hiking ability so I'm going to say it took us about twice as long to do the hike because they were all nice enough to wait for me. Towards the very end it got really hard for me to make it up, thin air and such but we made it to the top! First thing I did was lay my fatty behind down after panting my way up a mountain, word.
Derek looked like a pretty princess at the top. This was the mountain we climbed and behind him is the ravine with more villages and more mountains that would get one to Daghestan.
This is the view of where we came from, right where the two nearest mountains meet is Kötüklü. So that was our morning walk.
It was EPIC! We ate loads of bread and eggs and chicken. The boys hit rocks off the mountain with our walking sticks, had a fake sword fight and the dog stayed with us the whole time.
Speaking of the dog named Topuş(chubby), he's a punk. As the boys are continually waiting for me to hurry up Topuş ascended about 5 times. He kept reappearing with a look on his face that was truly mocking me. Just me, not the others. I swear that dog just had mocking eyes for me. Good thing he went the other way down the mountain otherwise he would have seen me win The Lori Award many times. The Lori Award is only given to those select few who deem their backsides too clean and decided to butt slide down a mountain as opposed to simply walking down. I.E. you fall you get my award, the boys all got it too, even Mr. "Country" Boy himself - Jason.
Here's The Coach perched on a cliff, he decided to go there at some point during our descent. I don't really know why but he's kind of a mountain goat so I just go with it. We all ended up joining him anyways.
Finally this is Derek's video of us at the top of the mountain. Note me lying down because as I said, I needed to after that hike just so I could breathe.
